Mr Rudd said if he has one ambition in life, it is to ensure closing the gap with Indigenous Australians is "taken out of the political ruck".

"And we get to a stage where all Australians realise this is a national mission for us all," he said.

"We are judged by the rest of the world on these questions and rightly so, and we will be judged by our children as to whether we have got this right."

Mr Rudd said the Government has a strong track record in Indigenous affairs, adding the Liberal Party could not say the same thing.

"On something as basic as the apology to the first Australians, we did wait many, many years for that to happen under Mr Howard's government of which Mr Abbott was a senior minister," he said.

"It didn't happen. It was the first action of the Government that I led back in 2008.

"I think we have a track record of engaging seriously with the challenges in Aboriginal Australia, including the first ever national agreement with the Commonwealth and states on investing in closing the gap, in education, health, employment and all the rest with Indigenous Australia."